Education to spend 100% of its budget

THE Eastern Cape department of education has committed itself to spending its entire infrastructure budget, saying unlike last year not a cent will be returned to National Treasury.

It has allocated R1.5-billion for infrastructure projects.

This was said at a business breakfast meeting yesterday morning to review the 2017-18 budget speech delivered by the MEC Mandla Makupula.

The department’s chief director for infrastructure, Zama Mnqanqeni, said they had already reached 100% expenditure. “The repeat of last year will not happen. Not a cent will go back to Treasury. We are busy processing invoices and as of March 14 we have reached a 100% expenditure.

“However, it is still early days to say the infrastructure problems in the province will be completely fixed – there is still a lot of work to be done.

“We are taking it step by step to ensure that we do not embarrass the province and fail the learners,” he said.

Last year the department failed to spend more than R530-million meant for infrastructure development of schools, and had to return the unspent money to National Treasury.

This did not go down well with education lobby groups and the public in general, who accused department officials of incompetence as they had failed to use the funds to address infrastructure problems at schools in the province.

In his speech earlier this month, Makupula said they were ready to deliver on the allocated amount.

The MEC said this was mainly due to improved planning and execution capacity in the 2016-17 financial year.

“In order to consolidate project readiness for 2017-18, assessments of 355 identified projects were undertaken and these projects have been allocated to implementing agents to commence with their procurement before the end of the financial year.

“New projects were allocated to implementing agents in October 2016,” said Makupula.

The MEC said the new projects targeted for completion this year included:

● 161 water and sanitation projects;

● 32 electricity projects;

● 12 early childhood development centres;

● Construction of four new schools;

● 288 high security fencing projects at schools; and

● Delivery of 350 mobile classrooms to alleviate overcrowding in classrooms.

The department has also invested in a number of programmes to improve the matric pass rate in the province.

The department yesterday announced it had invested a number of resources, support programmes and back-up systems to ensure that at least 66 000 matriculants – about 79% of the 83 000 matrics expected to sit for final-year exams – would pass.

Deputy education directorgeneral Ray Tywakadi told those in attendance at the business breakfast that the nation was tired of the province always being last when it came to the matric pass rate.

“We are not committing to a pass percentage, but we are saying we are committed to making sure at least 66 000 learners reach the requirement to pass,” said Tywakadi.

The department’s superintendent(SG), Themba Kojana, said their aspiration was for all matric pupils to pass. However, the 66 000 figure was based on the enrolment of matrics at 560 high schools.

The SG said one of the programmes they had invested in to ensure they achieved this matric pass rate was the establishment of afternoon classes, which will officially start next month.

The SG said they would also take advantage of an agreement between South Africa and Cuba to share the experiences of Cubans teaching mathematics and science to strengthen training in the South African public education system.

“We will be piggybacking on this agreement and ensuring we bring these experts to the province,” said Kojana. — connection